Prentender and scales -
I went with a dormant oracle with E9S4N4, Reason was being a Prot bless for my sacreds with a little regeneration mixed in, astral to help gain access to the high end of that path later on.
scales were Turmoil 1, Cold 1, Growth 3, Luck 1 .
I don't clearly remember why I chose those scales...all I know is that Luck 1 paid big dividends in gold and gems over the game (I usually pick misfortune).
Early Expansion and the Hinnom War. Turn 1 - 30ish?
I started in the NW part of the map, my cap 2 provinces from Hinnoms cap, so we met very early on, I tried to expand away from him and avoid confict but he came straight at me with an army of chariots 40+
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Avvite_Charioteer led by a thugged out Melquart and Kohens
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Melqart (early game SC)...which I had nothing to counter with and he crushed my initial army, luckily he left his provinces with
NO PDwhich enabled me to raid him and hurt him economically preventing more of those nasty chariots and melquarts.
Now he should have crushed me and could have taken my cap, but instead he went on a tour through my provinces and still
DIDNT build any PD in my captured lands...so I was able to recapture with a simple scout that followed his main army. Meanwhile he was busy trying to recap his lands I had taken with indys while I built 21+ PD in each.
My forces built up and I sent armies north of our position and took lands up there, still avoiding a direct conflict with his main force, he then sent another chariot army north...oh great I thought but funnily enough he split it in two and I was able to encircle the two havles seperately and rout them ... meaning they were totally wiped out!
Now the saving grace in these battles was letting him come to me...he would set his chariots in a wall so they would span the width of the battlefield....sooo I set all my army at ther very back of the field all my mages were E2N2 spammed Earth meld so the chariots arrived in smaller lots and my steel maidens and sacreds were able to hack them to bits rather then be overwhelmed by the chariot mass. The strategy worked well.
After that it was a matter of grinding his economy down (giants costs LOTS OF $$$ and eat lots too) and we reversed roles his main army becoming the mouse and my growing force becoming the cat. Eventually I had it holed out and let it starve, Krec started staling around then which was disappointing as I believed he could still have put up a fight.
Arco, Helheim and consolidation Turn 30+ to 45+?
Were both near to Hinnom and Ulm, Helheim signed an early NAP with Hinnom much to my disgust as it crippled his expansion (locked onto a peninsula) and meant I didn't have the ally I hoped for against Hinnom, Arco refused a NAP too and attacked...seeming like they were going for a turtle strategy building lots of forts but not having many provinces.
I turned my full attention on Arco once Hinnom was defeated, of which went AI soon after...I went on a massive site searching (with spells) mission with my E2N2 mages but I was alos fortunate to find
2 that gave me A2 illusionists...sweet
, A death indy site was found with one of my D1 randoms, enabling me to bootleg into death too.
Arco proved harder then I thought to bring down....I guess he had a lot of mages with gems and it took a long while to bring all my armies across the map, eventually they fell and I turned to removing Helheim which although seemingly weak were giving Vanheim a challange...Helheims pretender ...oh wow what a great build and strategy...I salute the 2nd player who still has Zynoggoly doing hit and run attacks.
Research
After my goal of researching earth meld (alteration 2)
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Earth_Meld I went straight to construction and didn't stop till I hit Const 8 nad had my warrior smiths with their 25% forge bonus making earth boots and dwarvern hammers (a further +25% forge bonus).
Thats right ...I had access to artifacts around turn 30 something...which I didn't want anyone to know this
There was also some excellent battle spells like legions of steel etc..
Gargoyles, Golems and Gift of Reason
I began making Gargoyles, gift of reasoning them and kitting them out...the first one Artabanes was given monolith armour and the Stone sword and a few other trinkets...this combo proved to be lethal, armies melt before this guy - Helheims main army did, he literally petrified 200+ undead, the great thing about this was 0 fatigue...and immune to the nasty self-petrification effect of the stone sword. The others were thugged out with the nastiest things I could forge and used as raiders. The Golems were my astral mages used to forge astral artifacts and boosters.
Neifelheim and Vanheim Turn 45+ to 70
After Arco fell I considered moving south to kill the crippled Tien Chi, however he was proving to be a nice buffer between Lanka (who was unpredictable being AI) and I now had a narrow land bridge to Neifelheim, he refused my NAP and attacked with a large army of Skinshifters (70+ I think)....I didn't feel to worried, Its expensive to keep all those giants around so I decided I could outraid him with my gargoyles and just surround his main army and rout it...so I did that, By now I had access to every path (even blood - I have this guy to bootleg with
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Treelord_%28Barkheart%29 ) so it was only a matter of deciding what to throw at him, I used warriors of muselpheim and rings of cold resistance to protect my army from the ineveitable cold (ulms troops have 25% cold res to start with) and tore it too shreds with everything else.
Now at this time Vanheim wanted out of our NAP, So after the alloted 3 turns, I turned my attention from Neifelheim of which had been hit very hard losing 20+ provinces and 3 forts in a handful of turns, oh Neifelheim had death scales too which was strangling his gold flow....made my job alot easier - I didn't gain much in gold from Neifels provinces....but that was more then made up for from the gems....all those provinces had lots and lot of gems...
Anyway back to Van, I hit Van after the NAP expired with my armies...armies of mages and thugs now....Having Forge of the Ancients up means my smiths and others are pumping out the max (50) items a turn, my biggest dilemma was not running out gems but emptying my item treasury every turn so I could fill it up again. Battlefield wide spells like armies of gold, storm warriors, mass regeneration were used...and as John Madlock knows Van was taken quickly as he really didn't have the resources to stop me...oh we had/have a second front in the ocean being fought over, but gargoyles with rings of water breathing and an army with goblets of water breathing seem to be winning too.
Gem Generators
Contrary to opinion I don't have any clams, I have about 10 fever fetishes as I only have a handful of fire mages which are too busy making items then site searching, all my gems are from the 2 globals i have and the huge amount of site searched provinces.
Why was Ulm so successful
I think some critical mistakes by Hinnom (like the fact he didn't crush me like an experienced player would have) and the fact his two neighbours Arco and Helheim were so weak was the biggest factor. Once I started building momentum it felt like a juggernaut that couldn't be stopped.( I nearly made one of those by the way
)
Oh and Artabanes the Stone sword wielding Gargoyle. (The counter to this is the shatter spell).
While it might seem I'm uber experienced...the truth is I am currently in five games, already been knocked out of 2 others already. E.g. My idea to use Earth Meld against the chariots was taken from the Tophats game where my strategy as Arco revolved around trampling Van with elephants...he then taught me how effective false fetters (Air version of earth meld) was in stopping big rampaging tramplers
. You learn lots by playing against more experienced players and these forums are great for tips....Dom3wiki is great too!
The Future
Should the game continue - I'd like too even if people concede to me and go AI.
I intend to mop up Vanheim and Neifelheim (still has a nice juicy army in his cap). Kill that damn lump of rock they call Helheims pretender.
I just wished for my first Seraph, I am going to Gift of reason him, transfer the chains of tartarus and some other goodies and start wishing for doom horrors.
From there I'll probably use my demon fighting army (I have started mass producing demon banes and herald lances for Lanka) to head south in Lanka and send the current Van/Neifel Army into Ermor....